I got this sent to me by my SgtMaj. I'm sure it's making its way around the services via email chain, but I thought it was pretty cool. I'm really surprised that only .45% are serving right now.

quote:I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.

My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for meto get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that shehad opened up my admission letter. She wasn't crying because it had been herdream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I'dworked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to bean infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.

That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me thefollowing: "Nick, you're a smart guy. You don't have to join the military.You should go to college, instead."

I could easily write a tome defending West Pont and the military as I didthat day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate fromthat it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military thanit is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challengethat all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, butI won't.

What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attendingWest Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerousdisconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea whatkind of burdens our military is bearing.

In World War II, 11.2% of the nation served in four years. In Vietnam, 4.3%served in 12 years. Since 2001, only 0.45% of our population has served inthe Global War on Terror. These are unbelievable statistics.

Over time, fewer and fewer people have shouldered more and more of theburden and it is only getting worse. Our troops were sent to war in Iraq bya Congress consisting of 10% veterans with only one person having a child inthe military. Taxes did not increase to pay for the war. War bonds were notsold. Gas was not regulated. In fact, the average citizen was asked tosacrifice nothing, and has sacrificed nothing unless they have chosen to outof the goodness of their hearts.

The only people who have sacrificed are the veterans and their families. Thevolunteers. The people who swore an oath to defend this nation. You.

You stand there, deployment after deployment and fight on. You've lostrelationships, spent years of your lives in extreme conditions, years apartfrom kids you'll never get back, and beaten your body in a way that evenprofessional athletes don't understand. And you come home to a nation thatdoesn't understand. They don't understand suffering. They don't understandsacrifice. They don't understand that bad people exist. They look at youlike you're a machine - like something is wrong with you. You are themisguided one - not them. When you get out, you sit in the collegeclassrooms with political science teachers that discount your opinions onIraq and Afghanistan because YOU WERE THERE and can't understand the "macro"issues they gathered from books with your bias. You watch TV shows whereevery vet has PTSD and the violent strain at that. Your Congress is debatingyour benefits, your retirement, and your pay, while they ask you to do more.

But the amazing thing about you is that you all know this. You know yourcountry will never pay back what you've given up. You know that the populaceat large will never truly understand or appreciate what you have done forthem. Hell, you know that in some circles, you will be thought as less thannormal for having worn the uniform. But you do it anyway. You do what thegreatest men and women of this country have done since 1775 - YOU SERVED.Just that decision alone makes you part of an elite group.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to sofew.

Assuming out of an average of 1700 cadets that cycle through the Corps every 4 years, 40% commission (it's actually now closer to 50%), that's roughly 680. Plus the 100 (or possibly more) throughout the Corps and rest of the student body that drop out and enlist or pursue an alternative commissioning program (PLC, HPSP, NBDCP, etc), that's around 800. 800/45000 = .017, or 17%. You might have gotten your decimals mixed up.

There has to be a source of real numbers. I was never in the corps at A&M but when I commissioned I got a letter from A&M's commandant so they obviously had a way of following who got commissions even though I had no connection with them.

Either way, I don't really see why the exact percentage of the population serving matters that much. I think it would help for more people to have that experience, but obviously we would have to drastically increase the size of our force just to get a higher percentage of people serving.

Military service has always been seen as being for "losers" who "can't make it on the outside." That and the fact that American public schools are pushing the idea that whatever bad happens in the world, it is America's fault leads to low enlistment numbers. For those who are serving or have served, I thank you and salute you. (RVN '66)

That quote comes from Nick P, co-owner and co-founder of Ranger Up. Alot of you guys might know about them but for those who don't, RU is a vet owned and operated company geared to making military themed tshirts and sponsoring current and former servicemembers in MMA. Their most famous athletes are Tim Kennedy(Strikeforce-UFC middleweight and Green Beret w/ TXARNG) and Brian Stann(UFC middleweight and former Marine officer- Silver Star recipient.) An outstanding company with outstanding products. Check em out at www.rangerup.com

I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death.William Barret TravisLt. Col. Comdt.24 Feb 1836

That 0.45% statistic is quite misleading. My BN CDR touts that number a lot to make himself feel important, but the fact is it is based on bad math. In WW2, Soldiers went to Europe or Asia and didn't go home after a year. The 0.45% is the current number in the military, it doesn't account for those that spent a year in Iraq and then left the military. It doesn't account for those that spent 4 years in a ARNG unit, never deployed, then got out. The number is actually quite higher, you can query the VA for demographics for the age group available for service in the past 11 years.

quote:Assuming out of an average of 1700 cadets that cycle through the Corps every 4 years, 40% commission (it's actually now closer to 50%), that's roughly 680. Plus the 100 (or possibly more) throughout the Corps and rest of the student body that drop out and enlist or pursue an alternative commissioning program (PLC, HPSP, NBDCP, etc), that's around 800. 800/45000 = .017, or 17%. You might have gotten your decimals mixed up.

1. You have to base the percentages off of a class of cadets, not off of the Corps as a whole. Assuming a cadet size of ~1,700 cadets, a percentage of freshmen as about 35%, you have a class that starts off with about 600 cadets. Assume that you attrit about 10% due to punching and another 20% due to grades/other. By the time you reach 2nd pass Final Review, that 600 is down to about 415

2. Using your estimate of those that serve, you get around 800. Divide that over four years and you assume 200 servicemembers per class. Divide that by the 415 remaining in that class and you get 48.2%

3. If you assume that a freshman class overall at A&M has 6,000 students (senior class is the largest because it includes 5th, 6th, etc. year students) and you attrit by the same standards, you end up with 4,200 who graduate.

4. Using the results of points 2 and 3, you come up with 200/4,200, or 4.76% of all Aggies who graduate end up serving.

Only one congressman has a child in the military? Wanna double check your facts? Mccain has 2 children in the military... and I guarantee there are dozens more congressmen with children who are/have served.

And referring to the kids, I'm having trouble finding numbers. But here's an article from 2007 that lists nine Congressmen with sons and daughters who recently served, and mentions that McCain's son will soon commission and enter the military. Senator Max Bacus lost a nephew in Iraq. Biden has at least one son who served, as did former AG Ashcroft.

Total living veterans (2009) were 21.9 million. US Population 305m in 2009. So 7.2% of all Americans had served. Men made up 20.4m, so about 13.4% of men had served, about 1% of women.

About 1.7m veterans were under age 35. About (link) 12.1 % of Americans were 18-35 in 2000. Assuming that's still true as of the 2009 link above, about 36.9m Americans were 18-35. That means about 4.6% of that age group has served.

Wiki says that current active duty personnel are about 1.5M with about an equal number of reserve. Given current US population of 307m.

Active duty: 0.481%Reserve: 0.475%Combined: 0.956%

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 11/1/2011 8:26a).]